Sunday, September 26, 1999
A novel way to get the Ryder Cup back
By JIM LITKE
AP Sports Writer
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) - For all the problems big government
can't solve, here's one the bureaucrats in Washington might want
to try their luck at: Helping America get the Ryder Cup back.
That's right.
Enough with relying on overpriced, overhyped, homegrown talent.
It's time to try something different. It's time to give the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service a chance.
One way or another, America needs to find a dozen golfers like
the ones Europe keeps packing its squads with. Golfers with nerves
as steady as their skills. Who will sacrifice their own games
or egos, when needed, to set a teammate up with a better chance.
Who understand the difference between overlooked and undervalued.
At the close of play Saturday, Europe rolled out to a 10-6
lead and needed only four points from the dozen singles matches
Sunday to hang onto the cup for a third straight meeting. This
is how daunting the mission is: No winning side has ever made
up a deficit of more than two points in the history of the competition.
"We knew coming in here it was going to be tough,"
said Davis Love III, one of the few Americans to get in the way
of Europe's juggernaut. "I'm just hoping that we wore these
guys out, that some of them got rusty and some of them got tired."
That was the main talking point among members of the U.S. side.
They were reduced to hoping that Europe's decidedly undemocratic
approach to the matches would boomerang in the singles and ultimately
cost them the cup.
Unlike his U.S. counterpart, European captain Mark James has
kept three of his players - rookies Andrew Coltart of Scotland,
Swede Jarmo Sandelin and Frenchman Jean Van de Velde - glued to
the bench through the first two days of matches. He set up his
four pairs and sent them out both days with exactly one change.
That means seven players have played all four matches and two
others - Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal and Irishman Padraig Harrington
- have alternated playing alongside Miguel Angel Jimenez. But
when someone asked James whether his players were fatigued, he
simply shrugged.
"I didn't ask anyone if they were a little tired,"
James said. "I asked if they wanted to play. Two different
things."
"Some days," he added, "I feel tired as soon
as I get up."
The better question to ask James might be where the European
team keeps finding the tough, tireless components to fill out
its team.
The disappearance of the "Fab Five" - Seve Ballesteros,
Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle - was
supposed to signal the end of Europe's dominance in the Ryder
Cup. After all, it was the emergence of that group, which won
16 majors between them, some two decades ago that enabled Europe
to win or hold onto the cup through five of the last seven meetings.
Replacing them was supposed to be impossible. So Europe reloaded
instead.
Scot Colin Montgomerie has stepped forward to replace Ballesteros
as the team's lightning rod, challenging the Americans verbally
and absorbing the hostile gallery's best shots. He's collected
21/2 of a possible four points.
Eccentric Swede Jesper Parnevik and the charismatic Spanish
teen-ager, 19-year-old Sergio Garcia, have combined to become
the unshakable anchor that the Ballesteros-Olazabal duo used to
be. In four matches, they've won three times and tied the fourth.
Young Brits and close friends Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke
have provided the steadying influence of Faldo and whichever Anglo
he happened to be paired with at the time. Jimenez, Harrington
and Olazabal, no longer the dominant Ryder Cup force he was once,
have filled in admirably as role players - taking the place of
Costantino Rocca, Philip Walton and Ignacio Garrido.
The American resurgence on Saturday kept some slim hope alive.
After digging themselves a four-point hole on opening day, they
played Europe even Saturday and now approach the one format -
singles - where their clear superiority in the world rankings
and on the money list might translate into some serious points.
The question is whether that advantage will come too late to
make up the difference.
U.S. captain Ben Crenshaw admitted he had no idea why the Europeans
always play the team game so mystifyingly well. "We're still
trying to figure that out," he said.
Either way, he looked obviously pleased to send out his players
one time without any concern for chemistry.
"I think that the Americans ... I don't know ... but we
feel good about singles," Crenshaw said. "We really
do."
Then he fixed his questioners for one last moment.
"I'm going to leave y'all with one thought. I'm a big
believer in fate. I have a good feeling about this."
And if that doesn't work, well, there's always the INS.
---
Jim Litke is the national sports columnist for The Associated
Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org.
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